


Alive

by tisziny



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: CAL's world, F/F, F/M, Gen, The Library, library fix it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 20:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1023021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisziny/pseuds/tisziny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She thought of River. Her River. She had been so close just then, and though the TARDIS had never yet met her, she had and she would and she was. It was all so complicated but she saw it as clear as any other data in her file banks. The Doctor had saved River to the computer at The Library, and the TARDIS knew how much her River would hate that. Her River was a Time Lord. Her River needed adventure and danger just as much as her thief did. That computer would be so dull and lonely for her poor dear River and the Doctor had no idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hello

**Author's Note:**

> So I had the idea for this fic and started writing it over a year ago. It's been really tough and I am in a very strong love/hate relationship with it. I still haven't finished it but considering how much I had to change my ideas after The Name of the Doctor I really wanted to start posting it before the 50th Anniversary ep. Obviously since I'm going on holiday I wont finish posting it before than, but I think I could get a decent way into it.
> 
> I really really hope you like it. Please let me know below because oh God this fic has just been around in my head for so long an I can't even really believing I'm suddenly posting it for all to see.

_If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?_

Alice in Wonderland

  
**Part One -Hello**

 

The TARDIS hummed as the Doctor clicked his fingers and her doors shut. Slowly he moved up the ramp to the console with Donna. She could feel them both, her thief and the fiery one, they were sad and the usual excited energy that surrounded her halls was gone. The Doctor piloted her slowly and smoothly into the vortex and Donna moved past him silently. She knew what the woman needed and twisted her corridors to lead her quickly to her room.

 

She thought of River. Her River. She had been so close just then, and though the TARDIS had never yet met her, she _had_ and she _would_ and she _was_. It was all so complicated but she saw it as clear as any other data in her file banks. The Doctor had saved River to the computer at The Library, and the TARDIS knew how much her River would hate that. Her River was a Time Lord. Her River needed adventure and danger just as much as her thief did. That computer would be so dull and lonely for her poor dear River and the Doctor had no idea.

 

It was simple to do. The Doctor wished to go wandering, walking through her halls and corridors endlessly, caught between mourning and refusing to acknowledge the loss. The TARDIS led him to his room, and every door he tried, every corner he turned, she led him there. Eventually he gave up trying to defy her and stepped into his room, shrugging off his pinstripe jacket, loosening his tie and toeing off his shoes.

 

She hummed around him, trying to soothe him, trying to tell him it would be alright, that she understood and loved him, she would always be there for him and River would come back. River would be amazing. But she was a machine. She simply hadn't been designed to talk or communicate with her Time Lords in that way. He ran his hands over his face, letting tears fill his eyes, though they didn't fall. The TARDIS longed to reach out to him. She hummed, her floors vibrating ever so gently beneath his sock clad feet. He pressed a hand to her wall, caressing her.

 

"I know old girl." He murmured, "Thank you."

 

He undressed and climbed into his scarcely used bed and quickly fell into sleep.

 

The TARDIS took off, piloting herself smoothly and quietly so as not to wake either of her passengers. She landed in The Library, in the computer core. Easily she sent files over to the CAL system. She would be able to control them from her place within her walls across time and space, but the initial transfer would have to be here.

 

After a few short moments it was done, and the TARDIS took off once more, to wait in the vortex until her Time Lord woke up.

 

\---------------

 

When her files arrived in CAL's computer world the TARDIS found herself in the form of a woman dressed in a tattered Victorian dress. This was the body of Idris, the girl House had forced her into. Or perhaps he _would_ force her. Was forcing her? -But she had a body, which meant if she was lucky...

 

"Water."

 

She could talk. She beamed to herself and spun around. It was odd being here, the systems felt wrong and she couldn't see time weaving around her. She didn't know what was happening or would happen in this world. How peculiar.

 

She walked through the grass, rather enjoying the false blue skies and data generated trees. She stepped up to the door of the big house before her and knocked. The door opened and a girl that was not River appeared on the other side.

 

"Goodbye-no, what's the other one?" she spoke, "I'm looking for... the curly watery one. _River_. I am looking for River." She stepped inside while the poorly uploaded and beautifully crafted digital reproduction of a little girl stared.

 

"I'm..." What _was_ her name? The Doctor called her old girl. She liked it when he called her that, but she didn't think it was her name. There was something else, something else he called her... "Sexy." She smiled again, "May I see my River?"

 

She walked through rooms without waiting for an answer, walking quickly and poking her head into each room and saying to each, "Are you in here, my River?"

 

The last room she looked in was from her hallways. It was the room aboard herself that her thief was in at this moment, and so many other moments. So many moments in time, and most of them alone but such shining and happy ones shared with their River; their two bodies entwined and together. But this was not her room, she had not made this, she could not control it. This was CAL.

 

River sat atop the bed and looked up at the noise of the door. She gaped and the TARDIS jumped forward, climbing up onto the bed excitedly and into River's lap. She leaned in and did the first thing she thought of. She bit River's neck.

 

"Biting's excellent." She said with a smile as she pulled away from River's neck, "Like kissing, only there's a winner." She sat back, cocking her head to the side with a worried frown, "Why did I say that?"

 

"I don't know." Said River, her eyebrow raised curiously as she rubbed her neck, her voice questioning and laced with warning, "Why did you bite me?"

 

"I bite." The TARDIS smiled easily, "The only water in the Forest is my River. Do you miss me? How long has it been, time is very confusing in here I can barely see anything. I only see what is and has, but what will, I won't. Did I say that backwards?"

 

River stared at her, the strange Victorian girl who sat in her lap speaking of time and biting. Was this an escaped character from one of The Library's books? Who else could she be?

 

"Who are you?"

 

"He calls me Sexy. Names are _funny_ , aren't they, my pretty Song?" she smiled, her fingers dancing up River's arm in time to her words, "Time and Relative Dimension in Space," She giggled and tapped River on the nose.

 

"You're the TARDIS?" River asked, "The Doctor's TARDIS?"

 

"Yes, that's it." The TARDIS smiled, "And you're mine." she jumped up and out of River's lap, off the bed, "Shall we start?"

 

"Start?" River frowned, "What? Listen, my love, why are you here? How are you here?" She moved off the bed too, looking to the TARDIS and wondering.

 

The TARDIS frowned, looking to her River curiously. She reached out and took her hand, lacing their fingers together easily. "Why, I'm here for you." she told her, "My Song." she smiled, "Come on," and they ran, the walls around them melting away as the TARDIS pulled them head first into the pages of one of the Library's many books.


	2. Petrichor

He really had to be more careful with her. Holding off a regeneration just to pop around and look in on all his old strays, she understood the sentiment to some of them of course, but look at the state of her now. If he thought he was free to come back inside after that and meander around causing trouble with that orangey girl then he was most certainly wrong. He would deal with this without her; she could see it all perfectly fine and clear before her. Besides, she needed to rebuild and she knew exactly what she would look like. It had been very nice in the end. Would be very nice. It was _sexy._

 

"What was that, my love?" The TARDIS peered around a tree to see River staring at her with an amused frown, "Who exactly should be careful if they want you to be sexy?" asked the archaeologist.

 

"My Doctor. He's gone and crashed us, then run off to the moon and back. So I've jumped ahead twelve years. He should know better than to hold off regeneration, oh look! A trail of breadcrumbs."

 

"He's with Amy then."

 

"The orangey one? Yes. Not the pretty one, the pretty one will come after she-" The TARDIS stopped, "after she kisses my Doctor!"

 

River laughed, "Did you say breadcrumbs?" They looked to the forest floor; scattered across a half formed path sat a few birds, eating away at what was in fact breadcrumbs. "A walk through _Hansel and Gretel_ ," She smiled, "Lovely."

 

"Lovely? The story of the little boy and girl about to be eaten by a blind woman? I thought you wanted adventure, and mystery, we could go into one of the history books, oh yes!" The TARDIS grabbed River's hand and ran along down the breadcrumb covered path until the world around them shook and they lost their footing, flying through the air and falling flat and hard onto the now muddy path, rain beating down around them.

 

"Civilians! We have civilians!" Yelled a voice as another explosion ripped through the air.

 

The TARDIS laughed, wiping her muddy hands down the front of her skirts, River scowled. "You could have warned me."

 

The TARDIS just smiled, and looked for the source of the voice. She saw it slipping its way towards them through the rain, five mud covered tentacles writhing as the humanoid chest, clad in a brown and yellow camouflage uniform, ducked down low to the ground.

 

"What are you? Humans?" The stranger yelled over the sound of more distant explosions and splattering of the rain, "It's alright, you're safe now. My people will care for you, come on." He swung a muddy arm over each of their shoulders the three started to move together, the stranger's height and crouched posture forcing River and the TARDIS to crawl along on all fours.

 

A blast of light came down mere metres from them, and River felt her entire body buckle with the force of it, her arms giving way beneath her and planting her face first into a mud-hidden tree root. Her face stung, and her head felt like it was going to implode. She felt unfamiliar hands pull her up and, her vision swimming, she began to crawl again. The next blast might be on top of them, and computer generated world or not, River didn't feel much like dying if she could help it.

 

On the other side of their saviour the TARDIS crawled along with a smile on her mud caked face. Her knees and hands were burning with each step, and her skirts were incredibly heavy with the falling water and sloshing mud, but this was so new and different and _exciting_. She had hands -fingers!- she could feel the mud squelching between them and under her nails. Her hair was sodden and cold on her neck, making tiny little hairs there prick up and a shiver run down her spine. She could smell muck and dirt and a metallic tang from the explosions thick in the air.

 

This was _wonderful_.

 

She fell, her hands slipping under her into an unseen puddle, and her eyes scrunched against the water. She couldn't breathe! Why couldn't she breathe? Why did she _need_ to breathe? A firm hand grabbed her hair and the TARDIS yelled out in pain as she was forced upwards out of the water. Had she been drowning?

 

The hand clapped her on the back and the TARDIS convulsed, her stomach churning and eyes burning as her she heaved and a splash of brown dirty water forced itself out of her throat. She coughed and spluttered. Oh what an absolutely horrid sensation. She could feel it, sloshing in her stomach, but no time to stop, the hand was pulling on her again and behind them she could hear more explosions. They moved onward, into the large puddle.

 

That wasn't right.

 

A puddle was a small pool of liquid, most commonly rainwater, on the ground. This water was deep. She was _standing_. The man between herself and River adjusted his grip from their shoulders to their necks, his hands coming down over their mouth and nose. Her eyes flew wide. No, breathing was needed! She had no desire to feel like she had moments before, none at all. Her hands flew up to loosen his grip, but it only tightened, and then she was being pulled under, into the water.

 

The TARDIS struggled. Under the water she couldn't see or hear or more importantly, as she had discovered earlier, _breathe_. And as it turned out, she couldn't swim either.

 

She kicked out blindly, struggling to pull the hand from her mouth and reach the surface. But they were too strong, and her skirts weighed her down extraordinarily. The loss of oxygen was hurting her head, her chest, and all of this was so tiring. Her grip slackened, her legs stilled, and the TARDIS felt herself sinking down, lower and lower and lower.

 

She hit the dirt floor with a wet smack, gasped in pain and was rolled onto her side by strange hands as desperately she sucked in air. It was damp all around; she could taste it, or perhaps that was just the water she'd inhaled earlier. After a long moment, her eyes still closed the TARDIS spoke.

 

"Adventure is tiring," She murmured, "and painful." Somewhere next to her, River laughed.

 

"I am sorry I caused you distress," A smooth voice said from above them, "But we needed to reach my people, away from the fighting. Those woods are no place for humans, especially your nursing kind."

 

The TARDIS opened her eyes. "Nursing kind?" she asked, sitting up and cocking her head to the side.

 

"Female," River murmured, "You're Werlektian, aren't you? The only species in this galaxy to have one gender." She grinned, "I dated a Werlektian once, but it didn't work out, we weren’t particularly... compatible." She let her gaze drop to the Werlektian's tentacles with a smirk.

 

Her implication seemed to be missed by the Werlektian before them, and he simply nodded, "Yes. My name is Klip, and these are my men." He held his arm out and River turned to see a group of Werlektians, a few moved around the grotto cleaning and making beds, others sorted through weapons or read books, while a particular few stopped their activities to simply watch them curiously. "This is my mate, Qlo and my brother, Faihale. You shall stay here until the moon rises; then it will be safe for you to return home."

 

River understood. This would have to be the 38th century; the battle between the Werlektians and Joish. The Joish people tore through planet after planet infiltrating each planetary society and trafficking humans and humanoids back to their home world as slaves. Women were sold as prostitutes, making them in higher demand and worth more to the Joish on the land above them.

 

River grimaced; what a horrible war they had fought. Of seven planets, the Werlektians were the first to fight back and the people captured from the six planets before them became bargaining chips, the playthings and hostages of the Joish government, often tortured in retaliation to the events of the war.

 

But this wasn't real. This was a history book; whatever they did in here would have no effect on the world outside. A smile formed on her lips and River turned to the TARDIS. "Where would be the adventure in that?"

 

The TARDIS laughed and beamed happily as River smirked at her, "What do you think, darling? Will we go home? Or will we stay here and help defeat the Joish?"

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to just give a huge thank you to all the different people who've helped me with this fic. So thank you so so much Charina, Neroli, Sam, Sandy, Natalie and probably more that I'm forgetting but it has been a year. I can't remember everyone. Sorry.


End file.
